Tag: ulcer
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The Potato Eaters: Brushstrokes of sickness and sustenance
Jeanne DsouzaManipal, India One wants to be an honest man, one is so, one works as hard as a slave but still one cannot make both ends meet . . . One is afraid of making friends, one is afraid of moving, like one of the old lepers . . .– Vincent Van Gogh, Autumn…
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W.W. Keen: Physician to the presidents
Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States Figure 1. The cheek retractor used in Cleveland’s operation. From The surgical operations on President Cleveland in 1893 by W. W. Keen. 1917. Via the Internet Archive. William Williams Keen served in the American Civil War and was present at the first and second Battle of Bull…
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The Girl with a Pearl Earring—A vanitas?
James Lindesay Leicester, United Kingdom Girl with a Pearl Earring. Johannes Vermeer. circa 1665. Mauritshuis. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. It is a truism that you only have one opportunity to see a picture for the first time. However, in our image-saturated age, by the time you get to see a famous painting in…
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It takes a team
Michael Meguid Syracuse, New York, United States I saw two bright colored polaroids: One pictured Rudolph, a burly coal miner with a white bandage about his left ankle. The second was a close-up showing a four-inch long festering ulcer overlying his Achilles tendon. Its crater floor appeared necrotic, slimy, and green. The margins looked…